Joy and uncertainty, community and loneliness, love and fear: these are just some of the themes David Dawson and Staatsballett Berlin will explore when they return to the Deutsche Oper with an evening of ballet next Wednesday (02.11.2022). On show is Dawson’s “Voices”, which the choreographer created at the beginning of 2021 – a year remembered for rules, isolation and confinement. Accompanied by Max Richter’s 2020 composition of the same name, the ballet reflects on community, what it means to be human, and what it means to be amongst – and separated from – people. The work incorporates texts from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, providing a sense of fragile hope and inviting the audience to celebrate and protect human existence.
Also showing is Citizen Nowhere, from 2017. For this dance piece Dawson teamed up with composer Szymon Brzóska to reflect on what it is to be human. A solo dancer appears as a stateless loner, vulnerable and precious. Inspired by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s tale of the Little Prince, this portrait of a lost artist is a tale of love and longing, of wonder and sorrow, and of learning and loss. Seeing both pieces juxtaposed in one evening, you reach a conclusion: we are, in a way, all part of the same thing. We’re citizens of nowhere, and at the same time citizens of everywhere.
Text: Alina Herbel / Photos: Yan Revazov & GK Bose / Credit: Deutsche Oper Berlin & Staatsballett Berlin
Staatsballett Berlin at the Deutsche Oper, Bismarckstr.35, 10627 Berlin–Charlottenburg; map
Dawson returns on 02.11.2022 and runs until 23.01.2023. Tickets are available online.
